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Monday, November 29, 2010

Coconut Chicken Salad in the Sunshine and a Giveaway Winner

Everyone has their own personal stress demon. That little something which is upsetting way beyond the bounds of proportionality. Mine is the childcare catastrophe. The most extreme version of that happened to me last Friday as follows.

Once I had done all the 5 million things which needed doing in order to leave the family at home alone for 3 days (lists, $5 for casual clothes day packaged up, appointments made, food in fridge, food defrosted and labelled, instructions set out on the bench, clothes washed, netball cancelled, children prepared, bags packed, training cancelled, work documents squeezed in, taxi organised) I found at 7.30 am on Friday morning that I had a window of 30 minutes after the temp child care lady arrived and before I caught a taxi to the airport to fly to the Sunshine Coast. I even had time to double check my hairdryer was packed (for defrizzing hair purposes).

That's funny, I thought, she should be here by now. At 7.45 am I was worried so I checked my emails and discovered to my horror that in fact I had failed to book her for the day I needed her. I had completely messed up my dates and booked her for the following week when I most certainly did not need her.

A good 10 minutes of hyperventilating followed, where the fact I was about to get on a plane and had no childcare and no options for emergency childcare for a whole day with a husband who had work commitments to keep really hit home. I have never confused my dates in such a way before.

(Noosa main beach viewed from Bistro C - 27 November 2010)

A solution was found. It was one of those no choice solutions really. Husband ran his 7 hours of telephone conferences from home, and my son got to watch a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of television.

And I arrived home to a happy little family who had had lots of daddy bonding, scootering and dungeon building time over the weekend (once the television was switched off). Which made me feel warm after a weekend of worry...

Meanwhile, I had a long weekend of meetings and briefings. And a wonderful lunch with a perfect Shaw & Smith chardonnay at this beachfront restaurant in Noosa, Bistro C.
There is a reason Noosa is crawling with Melburnians. It is a fantastic place...

Now, to my paw paw cream giveaway. In the time honoured manner of this blog, I arranged for a small superhero (Superman this time) to select the winner. I put you all in, even though some of you said you were already fully supplied with paw paw cream. As I said, you can never have too much.

14 comments:

Here is to your wonderful husband who understood the situation and made it happen. Kudos to you for marrying a good one. I am all too aware that nothing in a dual-working house can get done without the support of a great guy. Happy to hear it all worked out. But I do hope this didn't take a couple of years off of your life. ;)

That salad and the beach look heavenly... I don't mind Noosa but I do find there are just too many people there, mind you without ALL those people you wouldn't get such great salads... Glad the childcare nightmare worked out and of course you're not too late for the Kikki-K giveaway!

Oh how stressful!! There's always so many lists and things to organised when children are concerned. I can imagine your panic when you discovered you hadn't organised child care. Thank goodness all worked out well in the end :)

Oh Jane...first of all, I'm so sorry you had to have such a start to your little getaway but I'm thrilled that it finally worked out in the end...WHEW!!! BTW - that salad looks amazing!

Second of all...I'm so excited that I won!!! This is my very first blog giveaway win, what an early Christmas present! I actually gasped when I saw my name! Please tell "Superman" thank you for me (and a huge thank you to you too)...I wonder if he used his x-ray vision! ;)

I will email you with my address directly and look forward to discovering the *miracle* that is PawPaw!XOXO J~

Oh my goodness I could practically feel my heart dropping alongside yours! I have those moments occasionally. I usually consider myself to be completely together but when I drop the ball, I really drop it.

Yep did the same once, except that my plane was to Syd. - Chicago & there was no husband to chuck Plan B at! God, I'm soooo glad those days are gone, it's a miracle all the boys survived their life with me as their Mother. MOTH & I are banned from Noosa - not trendy enough!Millie ^_^